16 Indian Startups Making News This Week (14 November – 20 November)

21/11/2016

Consumer Internet Industry

1) LawRato founded by Rohan Mahajan: Tech-based legal advice startup LawRato raised an undisclosed amount in its Pre-Series A round of funding led by Indian Angel Network (IAN). Post funding, V.P. Rajesh and Srikant Sastri from IAN will join the company’s Board of Directors. The raised funds will be used for the development of its online platform and expansion of operations.

2) Trip Tap Toefounded by Manuraj Singh Johar: A travel portal and travel concierge app, Trip Tap Toe raised angel funding in exchange of 26% stake for an undisclosed amount. R.S Sharma, former Chairman and Managing Director of Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) invested through his son Nayan Parashar, Director at Trip Tap Toe. The raised funds will be deployed to expand its sales team, initiate new marketing initiatives, invest in the mobile & web technology platform, and hire talent in the industry.

3) Tpot founded byRobin Jha: Tpot, a Delhi-based food tech startup focused on serving the ‘chai-nashta’ segment, raised an undisclosed amount in Pre-Series A funding. The investment was led by principal investor at Tpot, Ashish Gupta, Founder & Trustee of Ashoka University and ex-co-founder & COO of Evalueserve. The raised funds will be used to add 19 more outlets by the year-end and reach up to 200 by March 2018 at various corporate offices, metro stations, and hospitals.

4) Pictor Imaging founded by Gaurav Raj, Neelesh Soni, and Siddharth Chilukuri: Product photography startup Pictor Imaging raised an undisclosed amount in funding from Quarizon, a Delhi-based early-stage startup fund. The funding will be utilized to strengthen its team, technology and for marketing purposes.

5) vClusive founded by Vinu Sundaresan: An omnichannel marketplace for luxury brands, vClusive raised $6.3 million in a round led by venture capital firm Hunch Ventures and a few other angel investors. The company will deploy the capital for technology development along with marketing and branding campaigns.

6) WorkIndia founded byAjay Kumar, and Kunal Patil: A job portal for blue-collar workers, WorkIndia raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Japanese venture capital investor Asuka Holdings. The investment was done through its Singapore-based subsidiary Asuka Global.

E-Commerce Industry

7) GoZefo founded by Rohit Ramasubramanian, Himesh Joshi, and Arjit Gupta: E-commerce portal for second-hand and factory seconds goods GoZefo, raised $6 million in a funding round led by Sequoia India. BEENEXT and existing investor Helion Ventures also participated in the round. With this move, Abheek Anand, Principal Partner, Sequoia Capital India Advisors, has joined the company’s board. The startup plans to spend the funds raised on its plan to tap the value conscious online customer.

8) Koovs founded by Amit Shukla, Kanishk Shukla, and Manish Tewari: Delhi- and UK-based fashion retailer raised a strategic investment of about $4.8 million from the Times of India Group and a further $8.7 million investment by new and existing shareholders. The funding was raised through the issue of 21.7 million new Ordinary Shares at 50 pence/share. This capital raise is part of the final tranche of the company’s three-year investment program to raise approximately $43.6 million, announced in September 2015. It brings the total raised under this program to$38.6 million to date.

Technology Industry

9) Active.ai founded by Parikshit Paspulati, Ravi Shankar, and Shankar Narayanan: Singapore-based fintech startup Active.ai raised $3 million funding led by Kalaari Capital and IDG Ventures India. The raised funds will be deployed towards expansion of its AI Product platform and payments in Asia and North America.

10) PlaySimple founded by Siddharth Jain, Siddhanth Jain, Preeti Reddy, and Suraj Nalin: Bangalore-based mobile gaming startup PlaySimple raised $4 million in Series A round of funding from SAIF Partners and IDG Ventures India. The raised funds will be used to develop new titles, expand its teams and market its brand.

11) Stasis Labs founded by Dinesh Seemakurty, and Michael Maylahn: Stasis Labs, a cloud-powered health monitoring company, raised $5 million in a Seed funding round led by RTP-HC, the healthcare-focused investment arm of RTP Ventures. Wonder Ventures, Techstars Ventures, along with a few others also participated in the funding round. Stasis will be using the funds to continue expanding throughout Indian hospitals and prepare to enter the US and other markets worldwide.

12) Scienaptic founded by Pankaj Kulshreshtha: Data analytics startup Scienaptic raised an undisclosed amount in investment from Pramod Bhasin, former Nasscom Chairman and founder, Genpact. The funding will be utilized to scale its big data platform, Ether.

Logistics Industry

14) ElasticRun founded by Shitiz Bansal, Saurabh Nigam, and Sandeep Deshmukh: A Pune-based stealth mode startup, ElasticRun secured $2 million in private equity round of funding led by Kalaari Capital and Norwest Venture Partners. The two venture capital firms have invested a million dollars each at a post-money valuation of $7.25 million. The deal was closed in May 2016. Post-investment, Raju Rajesh of Kalaari joined the Board of Directors of NTex Transportation Services Private Limited, the company that runs ElasticRun.

Healthcare Industry

15) Aermed founded by Ashish Prakash, Naishadh Sutaria, Aayush Jindal, and Nandit Pathak: Aermed, a pharmacy, and lab aggregator raised an undisclosed amount of angel funding round from Hitesh Windlass, CEO of Windlas Healthcare. Other investors who participated in the round included angels from a Boston-based private equity firm and a New York-based global investment bank. Aermed will deploy the funds for customer acquisition and ramping up the technology team.

Finance Industry

16) GramCover founded by Rishi Raj Vashisht, Neelam Kumar Gupta, and Nalin Rawal: Venture capital firm Omnivore Capital reportedly backed GramCover, an insurance marketplace for the rural sector, with $1 million funding. The startup is based in Delhi and was launched in March this year.

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